THE REV. DR. LINDA OLSON PEEBLES
THE FUTURES REPORT
TOWARD A MINISTRY OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
A Paradigm Shift in Unitarian Universalism
Linda Olson Peebles, Unitarian Universalism Selected Essays 1999
Linda Peebles has been a Minister of Religious Education since 1997, most recently serving the UU Church of Arlington, VA. She is noted, not only for her skill as a religious educator, but also as an artist and singer/songwriter. A member of the UUA Board as representative of the Joseph Priestley District, in 2012 she was named President-Elect of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association. This essay is her response to the 1981 RE Futures Committee report and paradigm shifts in UU religious education.
Religious Education is central to a liberal faith tradition and to our Unitarian Universalist movement. This can be understood both philosophically and historically. A tradition that is featured by its reliance on the use of reason, freedom, and must constantly educate its adherents. This association of congregations covenants to promote principles that include “encouragement to spiritual growth” and a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” We need education to live out these principles.
Throughout our history, our foremost thinkers have been advocates of education. From the 16th-century radical reformation Unitarian pioneers in Italy, Poland and Transylvania who encouraged close reading of the Scriptures to Channing to Emerson to Parker, and on to the 20th-century Unitarian and leaders and Universalist theologians, education has been key.
Because of our commitment to education, there have been many voices, many thoughts and many initiatives throughout our history. And our educational theories developed in constant active dialectic–engaged in a dance of initiation, response, and influences with the cultural dynamics of trends, styles, political and social events, and transformations. Liberal educators, of course, do not see their work as static, as merely an imparting of content and knowledge. That is indoctrination rather than education. Liberal educators understand their work to be a creative undertaking, a process of growth and change.
Therefore, we could look back on the history of religious education in our Unitarian and Universalist movements and see many instances of shifting trends. Philosophies have developed, and been subtly changed, and then rejected or built upon. Theories of teaching methods and of the meaning and content of curriculum have also come into practice and passed away. It is fascinating to study these, to map the history, and to see it in the context of events happening in the world at large. To get a glimpse of the streams, and an overview of the landscape, two sources are recommended:
The “Reader” for the Meadville/Lombard Theological School course on the history and philosophy of religious education. This is an anthology of documents that highlight the history of Unitarian Universalist religious education in North America.
Educating in Faith: Maps and Visions, by Mary C. Boys, which looks at the whole of religious education across the interfaith landscape in North America, and which helps us to place liberal religious education on the map of foundational questions, philosophy, and methods.
This essay is not primarily a history paper of the whole multi-century saga. It has been more narrowly written to answer the question: “What has been a paradigm shift in Unitarian Universalist religious education that could be considered worth our attention?” The answer to that question, which this paper will ponder–probably too briefly–is the work of the 1981 “Religious Education Futures Committee.” Throughout our history, there have been several significant and major shifts in philosophy, content, and methods in religious education. For a full appreciation of where we are today, these developmental stages need to be known and acknowledged. This paper suggests that the work of the Futures Committee is both the most recent major shift and the one that continues to affect our movement most directly. My concluding section explains my reasons for this claim.
Setting the Stage
It feels somewhat presumptive of me to address this topic in the company of many of you who have lived through and have been contributors to the rich and meaningful work of religious education in our movement. But the reason I said “Yes” when asked to prepare this paper for this Harpers Ferry Ministers’ Study Group–the reason I was bold enough to imagine I could attempt this–was because this question of paradigm shift struck a responsive chord with me. There has been a question I have been asking myself and others ever since I began considering our liberal religious education seriously. The work of identifying and considering a meaningful “new way” in Unitarian Universalist religious education offered me a chance to answer–or at least come closer to answering–a question I had posed and not figured out.
The question had to do with not so much what has been the paradigm shift most crucial to us, but what could be a shift that would be meaningful to us? When we study the history of Unitarian Universalist religious education, we see many positive shifts, moves forward, and we can appreciate deeply the work of many wonderful people. But I have found myself wondering, the more I study, why we keep encountering people dissatisfied with how things are? In an earlier paper I wrote: “Many thoughtful, committed people have traveled on our Unitarian and Universalist religious journey over the years. In their stories and writings can be detected a passion, but also a sense of frustration. It would seem at no point in our history have we felt content with how we deal with religious education. We have always wished we could do better, proposed how we could improve, and looked for a time and a way to bring our theory and our practice together.
“Our great ancestors in religious education, from Jesus to Channing, to Dewey, Fahs, Maclean, and on to the present, have had faith, insight, and compassion, and have taught us how to teach. Over the past five decades, wonderful curriculae have been developed to assist us in our task. But still we wonder why it doesn’t always work; still we wonder what happens to the children; still we are bemused that the ministers, the congregations, the parents seem to have little understanding of the core message of the education ministry.
“Unitarian Universalist religious educator Jean Starr Williams wrote, ‘Religion is caught, nor taught.’ That is not to say we should never teach any subjects, but rather that most of a person’s religious development and identity come from the totality of experience with family, community, and self. Why is it that we often feel unable to help our children “catch” religion! Williams goes on to comment that “our curricula areas cannot be faulted. So, we must look to ourselves and who and what we are as a religious community gathered on Sunday? Have we been doing the right thing poorly? “, Another question might be, how can we encourage people to become artists, and our congregations to be communions of co-creation, where liberating religion can be “caught”?
Jean Starr Williams was the director of the education section at the UUA in the 1970’s and the year after she gave this address to the Unitarian Universalist Sunday School Society in 1979, she announced her retirement from that position, effective in 1981. Her question, “Have we been doing the right thing poorly?”–suggest the unstated reflex of that question, “Have we been doing the wrong thing well?”–came out of a general awareness throughout the UU world that not all was well with religious education. The huge numbers of baby boom children had swelled our church schools in the 1960s and 70s were disappearing. Local congregations were, in fact, not happy with the curriculum materials being published. Many began to wonder if there was a correlation between the inability to retain our own and the quality of our religious education resources, programs, training, and philosophy.
Hugo Hollerorth had been director of curriculum development at the UUA during that era. Many wonderful resources had come out, including About Your Sexuality, the groundbreaking human sexuality curriculum that has served us well for more than 25 years and that is now giving way supportively to the brand new Our Whole Lives. From that era also came The Haunting House, a curriculum that continues to be considered by many to be the most religious and spiritual of our offerings for young children (and for the teachers!).
For the most part, the curricula developed were thoughtful, existential, and developmental guides to helping people discover meaning and ethics. The criticism, however, from many comers included complaints that the kits were hard to use, pieces got lost, busy teachers didn’t have the time to study the materials in depth, and so forth. But more crucially, there was concern that many of the materials were too secular and not specifically “religious.” Indeed, the thought had been that by making the materials general and not specifically Unitarian Universalist, we could market them to schools and other teaching groups and make a profit. This, sadly, did not prove to be possible, except for AYS. Congregations wondered if we had forgotten the need to articulate what Unitarian Universalism is and the need to include specific religious content even as we continue to help learners develop a sense of themselves as builders of meaning and identity. Elizabeth Anastos recalls that UUA president Gene Pickett clearly heard the negative feedback from congregations, who were saying, “We need curriculum that tells us our heritage, our Unitarian Universalist religion, and our unique visions.”
In addition to the concerns about shrinking numbers in our RE programs in churches and the quality of curriculum materials coming out of the UUA, there were financial troubles assailing the association. In 1978, the board of the UUA decided to cut almost all of the curriculum development budget. Hollerorth submitted his resignation.
The loss of the top RE staff at the UUA and the sense of dissatisfaction among UU congregations would have been reason enough for there to be pressure to inspire a paradigm shift. However, as wise people have often noted, everything is connected and, not surprisingly, paradigm shifts were already under way in two other realms of UU religious education simultaneously: first in RE professional development (the definition, education, recognition of professional religious educators), and secondly in the structure and meaning of youth programs and ministry. Considering the question of professional religious educators, the Benson Commission worked from 1975-77 to study the needs in this area. It recommended establishing a Ministry of Religious Education, and the UUA board appointed an Implementation Committee, chaired by Nick Cardell, to set in place a process that would bring this to the General Assembly in 1979. Meanwhile, by the end of the 1970’s the Liberal Religious Youth was in crisis and on the verge of undergoing radical change. Wayne Arneson became the UUA youth director, and poised to set up new understandings at a milestone conference called Common Ground.
The Times, They Were A’ Changin’
The situation led to the creation in 1980 of a special task force called the Religious Education Futures Committee by Dr. O Eugene Pickett, president of the UUA and the UUA board–and to their subsequent report, which was submitted to the UUA board of trustees in October 1981. This is sometimes called “The Futures Report,” and contained in this document are the seeds for major paradigm shifts in all areas of religious education. While preparing this paper, I had conversation with two of the committee members–the Reverends Tom Owen-Towle and Elizabeth Anastos–to ask them to assess the impact and influence of their work. Most of the recommendations have not just been planted and germinated, but have indeed taken root and have been growing in the subsequent years; others are still only challenging seed ideas. But the report–both in what it focused on and in changes it inspired–is a document worthy of note. It was the result of a clear, comprehensive, and coherent assessment by talented and insightful people, an honest “State of RE” report coupled with creative and courageous recommendations. And I believe it carries within it the promise of ways to answer the questions posed by Jean Williams and so many others: how to put the liberating ideals of religious education into the hearts and practices of every Unitarian Universalist congregation.
The Formation of the Committee
In January 1980, the UUA board of trustees approved Gene Pickett’s proposal to establish a committee “of six to eight people trained and interest in education, the Unitarian Universalist faith, and the direction our denomination takes in religious education at all levels.” This committee’s charge was “to assess the needs of our Association in religious education; to examine the present curriculum resources and future curriculum needs; to explore the philosophical grounds and make recommendations for the direction of our educational programs; to recommend staff appointments to the Education Section.”
The members of the committee appointed were: as chair, the Rev. Christine M. Wetzel, then Minister of Religious Education at North Shore Unitarian Society, Plandome, NY; Barbara Kres Beach, then managing editor of the Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance, in Falls Church, VA; the Rev. Dr. Marshall C. Grigsby, assistant dean, The Howard University Divinity School in Washington, DC; the Rev. Judith Hoehler, the minister at First Parish in Weston, MA; Dr. Anne C. Howe, professor of education, Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY; Nell W. McGlothlin, of Louisville, KY. representing the UUA board of trustees; the Rev. Clark B. Olsen, then performance consultant for the Wilson Learning Company of Eden Prairie, MN; the Rev. Tom Owen-Towle, co-minister at First Unitarian Church, San Diego, CA; and, serving as staff consultant to the committee and to the UUA religious education section, the Rev. Elizabeth M. Anastos, at that time director of religious education at Cedar Lane Unitarian Church in Bethesda, MD.
The Futures Committee was formed because of the sense of a need for a paradigm shift in Unitarian Universalist religious education, as made clear from the Introduction of the report:
“During the past decade…concerns about religious education have been growing in churches and fellowships and have been felt by denomination administrators and staff and the UUA Board of Trustees. There is a recognition that the denomination has not put sufficient resources in either money or personnel into religious education at the continental level.
“Changing social norms, new research in human development and social sciences, the current emphasis on adult learning and the ever-increasing impact of technology compel us to evaluate and modify our philosophy, materials, and methods in religious education in order to nurture denominational growth….
“There is a new vision of the church emerging as both a worshipping and an educating community of all ages.
“The development of leadership in religious education is also a major concern. Both St. Lawrence Theological School and Crane Theological School gave serious attention to religious education through professional programs and required courses for students preparing for parish ministry. Since the closing of St. Lawrence in 1965 and Crane in 1968, and the termination of an MRE degree program at Meadville Lombard in 1971, there has been no adequate graduate level preparation in religious education for our professional leaders.”
The Process
The Committee first met in April 1980, and leading up to its October 1981 report, it met as a whole group seven times, for a total of 18 days. Its process was thorough and wide-reaching. It sent out questionnaire surveys to congregations seeking input from ministers, DREs, RE committee chairs; to district religious education chairs; and to Collegium members, the UUA board of trustee and other denominational leaders. It met several times with UUA staff, as a group and individually. Interviews were held with the deans of Meadville/Lombard Theological School, Starr King School for Religious Leadership, and Harvard Divinity School. Members of the Futures Committee consulted with numerous UUA committees and met with cluster and district groups and with the Canadian Unitarian Council religious education committee. And it consulted with experts in secular and religious education.
The Futures Committee held two hearings at the General Assembly in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in June 1980. It conducted two workshops held at the June 1981 GA in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Individual members held hearings with LREDA and UUMA groups throughout the continent. Two UUA Advance Conferences on Religious Education provided papers, discussions, and recommendations to the committee. And articles in the UU World invited and brought forth many letters and personal contacts. Committee members and the staff consultant prepared eight “working papers” and an extensive bibliography to assist in the committee’s own learning and understanding, and also to give to all interested UUs the background to the committee’s work.
Following all the collection of data, impressions, and opinions, the committee joined in lengthy examination and discussion. The resulting report of its findings and recommendations was presented to the UUA board of trustees in its report in October 1981.
The Findings and Recommendations
What did the Futures Committee discover in 1980-81 about the current state of the fellowships and congregations of the UUA?
A small percentage of societies have large religious education programs for youth and adults. Many, however, do not. Of 759 societies reporting school enrollment of children and youth in 1980, 47 percent have 25 or fewer students, 86 percent have 100 or fewer….The majority of churches and fellowships are asking for program materials and leadership assistance in enabling children, youth and adults to grow as Unitarian Universalists. While they express a diversity of theological viewpoints, they want to encourage members of all ages to develop with Unitarian Universalism through a knowledge and understanding of its history and traditions and through a commitment to the it affirms….Many societies seek help in planning and leading worship services for all ages that meet spiritual needs and that strengthen the bonds of religious community….The parish minister is the sole religious professional in over 400 societies which have religious education programs. Yet, there is inadequate preparation for religious education in our theological schools.
Preliminary to the committee’s specific recommendations, the report lists 14 points that it considers need to be made to stress the values and points of view that influenced the committee. These range from increased intentionality and financial support to greater involvement of theological schools, improvement of curriculum, understanding that religious education is lifespan, balancing diversity and commonality, catching up with societal trends, and broadening our concepts of religious education to include worship, arts, and venues outside of Sunday morning church. The Report also contains a short essay on the “philosophical grounds” of religious education in the UUA. That essays concludes with this summary:
Our working philosophy of religious education emphasizes a holistic approach. Religious education programs must address the whole person: the intellectual, the emotional, the physical, the aesthetic, the moral, the spiritual, the imaginative, the historical social dimensions of an individual living within an interdependent ecosystem. Only then can we carry out the age-old task of religious education: to equip each person to forge a redemptive philosophy of life illumined by the accumulated wisdom of the past, relevant to the life/faith issues of the present and cognizant of the possibilities for the future.
The Futures Committee made nine recommendations!
*Recommendation 1: Advisory Committee
It was felt that a group should help to guide the UUA RE staff. It recommended this group, to be appointed by the UUA president, would serve to give support, critique, and guidance to the staff and to make annual reports to the president. This Advisory Committee was formed and funded following the recommendation. Tom Owen-Towle served on it, and recalls that it met twice a year for at least several years and was successful in helping with the development and follow-through of recommendations from the Futures Committee as those recommendations impacted the almost all-new staff in the UUA RE section. This committee no longer exists. Elizabeth Anastos recalls that while it was a very good sounding board for the staff, after several years, as the staff got on track and clear about its own procedures and goals, the Advisory Committee became less needed, and sometimes less helpful due to differences of opinion.
*Recommendation 2: Curriculum and Program Development
The committee called for a whole new curriculum model to be used to develop new curriculum materials. The model would include three dimensions: the principles of Unitarian Universalism; resources from UU history and traditions, Judeo-Christian heritage, other world religions and cultures, the arts, secular literature, and contemporary events and forces; the developmental level of the learners. It also recommended that existent curricula be examined for adherence to this new model and for language and content that might convey racial or sexual bias.
Tom Owen-Towle recalls that the basic need that he felt as a member of the Futures Committee was to look carefully at the curricular resource materials the UUA could/should be offering to its congregations. The Futures Committee felt the need for curriculum that would be explicitly religious and, even more, that would carry the meaning of the Unitarian Universalist faith. This was the era when the seven principles and (then) five sources were being developed for adoption by the General Assembly.
Because of the importance of this paradigm shift–in response to a clear need for more explicit teaching of Unitarian Universalism–the Futures’ recommendations concerning curriculum were extensive. Owen-Towle feels that the UUA RE curriculum department has carried forward with great success these recommendations. The period following the Report has seen a whole new kind of curriculum coming from the UUA RE department.
In many ways, the changes that have occurred in the new materials in the past decade rank in significance with earlier major changes in curriculum. In our history the Dewey-inspired shift to creative and interactive teaching methods was the first– seeing the role of religious education being not to fill knowledge into a learner but to discover religious questions within the learner and to help that soul grow. William Ellery Channing had stated this in the first half of the 19th century (“The great end in religious instruction…is not to stamp our minds…on the young, but to stir up their own;…to touch inward springs”), but it seemed not to have been realized institutionally until Sophia Lyon Fahs brought Dewey’s ideas into practice in religious education.
A second major shift in the Fahs era (l940s-50s), when the subject matter changed from content focused on the Bible or other set catechism to nature and humankind and cultures and the experiential wonder of spiritual growth. The third major shift was the Hollerorth era of existential, secular kits that explored how human beings make meaning of and from life.
The Futures Report initiated a shift to new materials that were user-friendly, that placed all learning in the context of Unitarian Universalist principles, and that were intentionally designed to be age-appropriate. It also proposed the “spiral” model of learning, which has areas of content coming around in cycles that meet new development levels. That conceptual model of curriculum mapping has served as the structure for new curricula produced since the mid-1980’s.
*Recommendation 3: Leadership Development
The Futures Report contained recommendations for both lay and professional religious educators. As a direct result of its urging for better training for lay DREs, the Renaissance training programs were developed and have been a very effective series of intense workshops to train, inspire, and support DREs and other lay religious educators. This became even more important with the end of the accreditation program to certify DREs. Besides the Renaissance series, which was a direct result of the Futures’ recommendations, the UUA RE staff has been working over the years to develop a systematic “landscape” for the development of religious educators, from their entry at anywhere along the continuum from untrained lay volunteer through basic trainings to degree programs and on to ordination.
This understanding of the need for professional preparation has been present for a long time and has been growing in the second half of the 20th century. The Liberal Religious Education Association was founded to support the growth of the profession. LREDA celebrates its 50th anniversary in 1999. A history will be compiled for the October conference in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and it will tell of the ongoing struggles and progress in raising the quality, the status, and the integrity of the profession of religious educator.
The Futures recommendations for lay leadership also included suggestions for training in adult and intergenerational programs and new programs for consulting DREs.
The recommendations concerning “professional” leadership development were aimed at ordained ministers. The committee recommended that the Independent Study Program, then the only preparation for ministry of RE, be moved to the Ministry Department at the UUA, in light of the fact that with the 1980 General Assembly vote creating the Ministry of Religious Education, that program would no longer provide certification for professional religious educators. What in fact happened was that the UUA began examining ways to make the ISP into a degree-granting institution, the moves began that eventually led to the ISP becoming a part of Meadville/Lombard in 1992. The program is now called the Modified Residency Program, and it has been accredited to grant the M.Div and MA degrees.
Other recommendations for education for ministers included encouraging the Ministerial Fellowship Committee to require “substantial preparation in religious education of those preparing for the parish ministry.” The MFC did add a requirement for some RE coursework and experience, and the student internship manual was revised to include a component on religious education, but it is the subject of debate currently whether or not we can honestly say that all candidates for parish ministry are obtaining “substantial preparation” in this area.
To address this, the Futures Committee recommended that theological schools provide flexible degree programs in religious education, such as we now see at Meadville/Lombard, and that degree programs for those preparing for parish ministry include adequate preparation “to equip candidates to execute effective education programs for all ages on the parish level” This has been a felt need ever since the demise of St. Lawrence and Crane. The work of teachers such as Angus Maclean at St. Lawrence and Robert Miller at Crane is legendary. They were powerful influences in helping students for parish ministry develop a love for and understanding of religious education. Students of theirs give moving witness to the impact they had on their ministries.
*Recommendation 4: Center for Religious Education
The creation of the Sophia Lyon Fahs Center at Meadville/Lombard can be seen as a direct result of the recommendation of the Futures Committee that a center be established to develop programs for training or for coordinating research. The Center now exists, and many people have dreams for the work that it may do years to come.
*Recommendation 5: Worship
Since the Futures Committee recommended that attention be paid to helping groups learn how to do worship for all ages, there has been a steady and growing move toward attitude changes. The “Worship” module of the Renaissance series helped many religious educators raise the quality of worship for children. And through resources and trainings, the concept of satisfying intergenerational worship is catching on.
*Recommendation 6: Youth Programs
Even while the Futures Committee was meeting, Elizabeth Anastos was in close communication with Wayne Arneson, then UUA staff person for youth, as he made plans for the new structuring of youth programs continentally. The Futures report endorses the work of the 1981 Common Ground Youth Assembly guide and other proposals “to give serious attention to strengthening the leadership and program resources that will support the religious growth of youth within the Unitarian Universalist movement.”
*Recommendation 7: UUA Staff Positions
The Futures Report gives a detailed description of the positions and responsibilities it was recommending for the UUA RE department, including professional and support personnel. For the most part, this did become the guide for the rebuilding the RE staff at UUA. And in fact since the Futures Report, the RE staff has gone from being few in number and underfinanced to being a fully staffed department at the UUA. Among the recommendations was the suggestion that there be two RE consultants on staff who would serve the continent as “field” staff. This recommendation has not only been followed, but has blossomed forth into the current goal of placing RE consultants in each district.
*Recommendation 8: Continuation of Present Programs
This section recommended the continuation of the REACH Packet, the ongoing training conferences held around the continent for lay leaders, and the annual “conclave” conference for a continental gathering of district RE chairs. These programs have been continued.
*Recommendation 9: Name of the Section
“We recommend that the name of the UUA’s Section of Education be changed to the Section of Religious Education so that its title accurately reflects the function of the section.” Perhaps this last recommendation most succinctly describes the paradigm shift that the Futures Committee Report was both reflecting and instigating.
*Impact and Meaning; Concluding Reflections
In assessing the impact of the report of the Futures Committee, one cannot overestimate the continuing influence of the words finally put on paper by this group of people. In many ways, there were simply reflecting and articulating a shift in needs and attitudes already happening around them. But in other ways, they consciously and intentionally set in motion major changes that might not have happened had they not take the time and energy to assess, review, and make creative recommendations.
Elizabeth Anastos was impressed with the quality of the people on the committee and their ability to work together. She recalls that there were many strong wills and opinions among the group. But eventually they were able to base their decisions for what needed to be in the final report on all the learnings the committee had gathered through their hearings and questionnaires. And in the end, agreements were reached by consensus. She also believes the impact of the Report was so effective because there was excellent follow-up. Everyone involved–the Advisory Committee an the UUA leadership and staff–“stuck to the plan.”
Tom Owen-Towle, reflecting on the impact of the Futures Committee, believes what made the experience meaningful was its clear primary emphasis on being a “think tank” and having the time, energy, focus, and mission to review, assess, and set goals. The process was needed at that time and made clear contributions to the whole of the Unitarian Universalist movement.
It is significant that in direct response to this Futures Report, major changes came about. Curriculum began being developed that included the UU-meaning component. The staff of the Department of Religious Education at the UUA has grown. There is no doubt that a significant shift has been made in the commitment to and support of RE across the association.
Since the Report, we have seen a shift on many continuums: from secular to religious; from the informal and implicit to the more formal (in training and preparation of leadership) and more explicit UUism; and from dichotomous splits of adult/child, upstairs/downstairs, learning/worshipping/living to a more unified understanding of the life of the faith community.
The impact of our UUA-produced curriculum materials was deeper than just the new intentionality of expressing Unitarian Universalist principles, although that is indeed significant. The Futures Report authors were aware of needing to take into account the increasingly diverse theologies of our movement. Mary C. Boys makes note of this contribution. After tracing the changes of philosophies and emphases of the different “eras” of RE materials in our Unitarian Universalist history, Boys, a Roman Catholic and professor of theology and religious education at Boston College, comments:
Perhaps such differences have roots in the nature of Unitarian Universalism, which, according to Judith Hoehler, has three distinct “faith stances”; the Judeo-Christian, the theistic, and the humanist. All three are authentic insofar as they incorporate the themes characteristic of Unitarian Universalism–free will, anti-Trinitarianism, reason, transcendentalism, universal salvation, and humanism. They are, nevertheless, mutually exclusive insofar as they emphasize certain of the themes to a greater or less extent and thereby differ substantially in regard to worship and religious education….Hoehler concludes that the denomination cannot have one core curriculum.
In the Futures Report, the committee wrote that it “felt compelled to try again to articulate a statement that recognizes the theological pluralism that exists among us and yet provides a cohesive framework within which curricula can be developed that highlights (sic) commonly accepted Unitarian Universalist principles.” The new recommendations encouraged developing curriculum in the spiral model, with the different faith stances presented, but always including the awareness of learning stages and styles and always naming the inherent Unitarian Universalist principles. Behind the recommendations was this philosophy, which was articulated in the Report: “As education is a process of becoming, religious education is a process which nurtures religious becoming. ‘Religious growth’ and ‘faith development’ are terms which describe the end-in-view of the religious education process.”
The Futures Committee did its work at a time of synergy with other forces shaping Unitarian Universalism at the time. It is interesting to read this section of its report: “The Religious Education Futures Committee applauds the 1981 UUA General Assembly vote to clarify once again the fundamental principles which unite our churches and fellowships in a continental Association. Without presuming to preempt the deliberations of the committee appointed to draft new statements of purpose for the Association, the Futures Committee proposes seven principles upon which to base the development of curricula. These principles are drawn from the present statements in the UUA By-Laws and from the Committee’s understanding of the historical trends within the Association.
As Unitarian Universalists we
1. Affirm and support an ongoing, free and disciplined search for truth, ever open to new insights and wisdom;
2. Affirm. defend, and promote the equality, dignity, and worth of every human being;
3. Affirm the use of democratic process and mutual respect in all human relationships;
4. Affirm a commitment to implement the vision of a world community founded on love, justice, and peace;
5. Affirm a reality beyond our individual creation and control which has been called variously God, Ultimate Reality, the Holy, Life force, or the Transcendent.
6. Affirm our interdependence with the universe and our responsibility to cherish and be caring stewards of the earth;
7. Affirm the importance of religious community and our responsibility for its nurturance.
Finally, very significant and closest to my heart is the influence that both the process and the report of the Futures Committee assessment has had on the ministry of religious education, both lower and upper case. A shift that began before the Futures Committee convened, but that was advocated in the Futures Report, was for the recognition and encouragement of ordained Ministry of Religious Education. This was not a popular or well understood recommendation. At the 1980 General Assembly, when the Benson Commission-inspired recommendation for the creation of ordained Ministry of RE came up for the second and deciding vote, it was narrowly passed, by just one vote, by the delegates.
MRE pioneers tell tales of many years and many painful instances–both before and since 1980–of being snubbed, rejected, and abused in subtle and not so-subtle ways, in personal and institutional encounters, by those who refused to acknowledge the validity of ministry of religious education. And LREDA has felt as well the struggle to achieve respect and recognition for the profession of religious educator in our congregations.
It is a troubling fact, a situation not unlike how our movement treated women ministers in the first half of this century, and how ministers of color have felt in our movement. Why have some–certainly not all–congregations, colleagues, and groups in the association for so long seen the profession of religious educator and the ministry of religious education as one with a lower status, not worth recognition or encouragement? Given our historical and philosophical commitment to the centrality of religious education, where has this attitude come from? Ageism (if it has to do with kids it’s not as important as adult stuff)? Sexism (perceived to be a female profession)? Intellectual snobbisrn? Pulpit-centrism (if it’s not spoken from the pulpit, it’s not real ministry)?
Well, possibly some of all of that.
A valuable part of the work of the Futures Committee is this: that an important key to discovering our way to the Promised Land of a healthy Unitarian Universalist movement is supporting a thriving and empowering religious education for all. And the real key to sustaining life-giving RE programs in our individuals, congregations, and denomination is the lifting up of the ministry of religious education. And understanding the ministry of religious education requires careful, intentional, committed nurturing and training and support of professionals in that ministry, be they DREs, parish ministers. or MREs. It will take the preparation of numbers of professionals who can take the depth and meaning of liberal religious education into every one of our congregations. If every congregation could be shepherded by a pastor, professional DRE, or MRE who did in fact have the “right stuff” to empower and sustain meaningful RE, then our people would not be forever floundering, wondering if they were doing the wrong thing well or the right poorly.
Throughout our history the real and almost mystical transmission of our RE heritage has gone on through the friendships and mentoring of mostly women, passing on to one another through RE conferences and camps and trainings their enthusiasm and commitment to the deepest treasures and meanings of RE. A select few have been blessed by the rare theological school professor who “got it.” But for our movement to grow, for the religious education to continue not just sometimes and somewhere but steadily and everywhere, Unitarian Universalists must take seriously the profession and the ministry of religious education. The Futures Committee Report did much to articulate that understanding and to make clear and direct recommendations for beginning to accomplish the goal of developing RE leadership our movement.
The Futures Committee Report notes: “Central to a Unitarian Universalist philosophy of religious education is the vision of the church as an educating community….Religious education seeks to nurture the individual’s capacity to enter effectively into the community building process, and the community’s capacity to accept and be enriched by the contributions of the individual. Thus each classroom setting, each worship service, each encounter between person and person, is potentially an occasion for what Henry Nelson Wieman called “creative interchange,” what Martin Buber spoke of as “the I-Thou relation,” and Paul Tillich spoke of as “being grasped by ultimate concern. ”
My appreciation of the Futures Committee is not just a professional one; indeed, it is personal. It is very important to me that this paradigm shift occurred, both in the work of the committee and in the UU movement as a whole. The Futures Report was completed in October 1981. That was the month that I first wandered into the chapel of the Mt. Vernon Unitarian Church in Alexandria, Virginia, stealthily picking up brochures and sermons, and when I began to consider for the first rime in my life that I might be able to connect to a religious organization. It was a shifting of paradigms for me, even as the shifts were occurring in the UUA world of religious education that made possible my own entry into this movement. Just as I was ready to be taught, the teacher was ready to teach me.
The Rev. Olson Peebles is Minister of Religious Education at Mt. Vernon Unitarian Church in Alexandria, Virginia. She is a 1997 graduate of Meadville/Lombard Theological School, and in June 1999 she joins the UUA Board of Trustees. This paper was presented to the 1998 Harper’s Ferry Ministers Study Group.